Conventionally, servers in a data center are remotely managed via a network, such as the Internet, by establishing a secure connection between a remote management node and the servers. For example, a secure shell connection is established between a management node and a system being managed in a data center. Then, the management node may run commands on the server via the secure shell, such as commands for configuring the server, providing software updates, etc. However, to set up the secure shell and to run commands remotely, a public key of the management node needs to be associated with administrative rights on the server. This is usually a manual process and requires the administrator to know a user id and password granting administrator rights to login to the server with the necessary rights. When logged in with administrator rights, the public key is stored in a predetermined file and/or directory, which can only be created, stored or accessed by a user or application with administrator rights. For example, in LINUX, an administrator must login to the server as user ‘root’ and create a file containing the public key of the management node in a directory owned by user ‘root’ that can only be accessed with administrator rights. In WINDOWS, an administrator must know the administrative login ID as well as the password to login with administrator rights to store the public key of the management node in a particular directory on the server. Then, the server may receive commands from the management node signed with the private key of the management node and verify the rights of the management node to issue the commands using the stored public key of the management node and safely run the commands and automated scripts.
Requiring an administrator to know the administrator password for every computer being remotely managed becomes problematic, especially in data centers or for networks including hundreds or even thousands of computers. The administrator may resort to recording all the passwords in paper or electronic form, which becomes a security liability, or the administrator may use the same password for every computer, which is also a security liability. Furthermore, requiring an administrator to go through the manual process of determining the administrator login ID and password and entering the administrator login ID and password can be very time consuming and costly, especially when a large number of computers are being managed.